Five Finger Death Punch’s Chris Kael: I Was Doing An Eight-Ball of Cocaine a Week

Five Finger Death Punch are back on the road for the first time since bassist Chris Kael left rehab. The four-stringer has almost three months of sobriety under his belt, but in a new interview, he shared just how bad his addiction to cocaine got.

Success can come with a price, and FFDP’s massive popularity has come with substance issues. Vocalist Ivan Moody’s battle to remain sober has been well documented, as he quit Five Finger multiple times while performing onstage. According to guitarist Zoltan Bathory, however, Moody has been doing better than ever as of late 2017.

Kael now hopes to remain sober while headlining shows and festivals, but he was self-medicating at alarming levels even while at home. "I was going through about an eight-ball of cocaine a week," Kael tells KLAQ. "That got to be the biggest problem for me. That and depression, the two things, were not good. I didn't realize it until I got into rehab that I was self-medicating with cocaine to get my dopamine levels up to fight the depression. I never even thought about that. And then when you come off it, you crash hard."

Kael adds, ”Ivan was going through his thing, and me, no one really knew, I was the quiet one that was kind of doing things on the side," Kael said. "It hit me hard when I got off the road last time. Going home was always hard anyway, 'cause you've got so much stimulation out on the road, and then you come home and you're, like, 'Wait a minute? I've gotta take out the trash? That's the biggest part of my job now?'"

FFDP will release their seventh studio album, And Justice For None, on May 18. Five Finger fought a legal battle for well over a year to release the record, and fans will finally get it next month.